


Stolen Meanings, Taken Back

by CherryFlight



Series: SWTOR: The Reflections Legacy [20]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, takes place some nebulous point in early chapter 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:46:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23130415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CherryFlight/pseuds/CherryFlight
Summary: What would be a moment to relax turns into something far more serious
Relationships: Male Imperial Agent | Cipher Nine & Male Sith Warrior
Series: SWTOR: The Reflections Legacy [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1643305
Kudos: 4





	Stolen Meanings, Taken Back

Natirru placed the cake pop he’d just rolled in sprinkles (calcium and protein rations, crumbled, dyed, and sweetened to offset their tastelessness) upright to set and picked up another to coat. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the pop at the far end rise from the foam block of its own accord and drift away. He felt a smile tug at the corner of his mouth and a warmth fill his chest, the way it had been every time something floated away in his kitchen. Stems cut from prepared mushrooms, bits of fat cut from meat, little pieces of food here and there. It was a step up from Oberon waiting outside the kitchen until invited inside. He was feeling more welcome with each shared meal, and stars knew the more food he got in him, the better. This was the first time he’d taken something finished, though, and rather unfortunately, this batch wasn’t for either of them.

“Well,” he said, decorating the one in his hand, “take another, so the twins don’t have to fight over the odd one out.”

He was answered with nothing but the rain pattering on the windows.

“Oberon?” He looked over his shoulder at the Twi'lek Sith curled up in a chair at the kitchen table, small frame draped in loose gray lounge wear, his hand frozen with the cake pop poised partway to a mouth now open in shock. In fear. Natirru’s stomach twisted into knots at the reminder that he came from a home where mistakes were disproportionately punished.

“Oh…” Oberon said, once Natirru’s attention was on him. His voice sounded small and thin, an auditory illusion of greater distance, choppy as his breath picked up. "These were for Adina’s girls… I-I didn’t know.“

"It’s all right,” Natirru tried to assure him. He picked up a second cake pop himself, and crossed the kitchen, slowing to a stop as Oberon shrank back in the seat, dropping the pop he held on the table with widened eyes. Natirru offered the second one slowly, remaining at arm’s length. "It’s all right,“ he repeated, "it’s all right. Here, you can take it.”

Oberon’s entire body was shaking, his hands gripped the chair’s arms so strongly his nails left pale marks in the fabric. Natirru noted the top of the bases of his lekku were flattened - not typical Twi'lek posture, but he had been raised by humans. Perhaps he’d had a feline pet once, and learned to mimic the movement of its ears, in the absence of someone else to mimic. Not that he needed it to read his obvious mood.

Realizing how he towered over the young man, and recalling both his parents were quite tall, he took a seat and put the corner of the table between them, and set the offered cake pop down on a napkin in front of him. He leaned back, then, a show of vulnerability for the shaken Sith, to be relaxed for him so, hopefully, he could follow suit. Oberon choked out a sound, a strangled sob, then shrank back further as he realized he’d made a noise. Tears had begun rolling down his cheeks.

“Do you need me to go, Oberon? I can leave, if you need.”

When he was met with more silence punctuated by panicked gasps of air, he pushed his chair back, ready to turn it so as to rise away from him instead of towards him.

“No,” Oberon said, finally. "Stay. Please.“

Natirru nodded, and scooted his chair back in, trying not to let his own emotions overwhelm him. To the abused, there was safety in solitude. It spoke volumes that Oberon, even through the panic response that clearly blurred past and present, wanted him to stay.

"I- I don’t know what to think, what to feel. You aren’t angry.”

“Of course not. Just…take it as a lesson on the value of asking first. You’ve done no harm, and I intend none. I’ll never knowingly hurt you, for anything.”

Shivering, still, but less so, Oberon uncurled, leaning forward slightly. Opening up again. Natirru did the same for him, and laid his thoughts bare to read, all the concern and empathetic pain and genuine care for him. "I-“ Oberon shook his head, and then it all came out in a flurry of thoughts tumbling from his tongue all at once. "Everything in me says to freeze or to flee but I know it’s wrong. I keep waiting for you or Mother to-to…to throw _something_ , a chair, a plate, _me_ …and it hasn’t happened and- and the thing that’s wrong is that _for once, nothing is_.” A pause, but only for a moment, only for a breath. “And it doesn’t feel real, the things I sense you feel for me, they feel like they’re things that _shouldn’t exist_ but they do, they _do_ , and I don’t know, _I don’t know_ …” The rush of words was swallowed in a flood of tears.

Natirru had begun to tremble, himself, the phrase _you or Mother_ striking him right to his core, letting everything in his expectations hit him in chilling waves of dread. He couldn’t let Oberon associate _him_ with these things.

“I’m not your father, Oberon.”

“ _I wish you were!_ ” Oberon cried. He shoved the table aside with the Force, the forgotten cake pops falling to the floor as it tipped over and clattered noisily on the tile, and lunged at him. Natirru half stood to catch him, falling back into his chair at the impact of the Sith’s desperate clinging tackle. He cradled him protectively as he howled into his shirt, incoherent for several long moments. "I wish…“ he said, finally, with a hiccup, "I wish I was the person _you_ would have raised me to be!”

Natirru found he couldn’t speak through the lump in his throat. Tears spilling from his eyes and rolling hot over his face, he rubbed Oberon’s back, trying to lend what support he could. During his marriage with Abric, they’d both said they didn’t want kids. For Abric, he was sure it had been genuine. For him, he’d never considered it as an option. That life needed as few anchors as possible. But, to shelter, to protect, to give this mistreated young man the home he should have had…

“To me, ‘Father’ means fear and pain and hiding until the anger passes. It shouldn’t. It should be better.” Oberon said, muffled into his shoulder and distorted by his sobbing. He gasped through his tears, breath hitching as words caught in his throat. And when he spoke at last, it was to say, “I love you, Natirru.” And as if that had only been a test, as if affirming the words were his, he said it again, “I love you.”

 _How long has it been since you said that to anyone and meant it?_ he wanted to ask, but still found he couldn’t say anything, in awe of this little survivor, this _fighter_ , who had been raised with fear and hate and still clung to the idea of love anyway, straining the chains of lifelong lies.

No doubt sensing something of that thought, Oberon sniffled, relaxed his tight grip into a proper hug. "I don’t- I can’t say it now, but, one day, I want 'Father’ to mean that, 'I love you’. Could…I call you my father, one day?“

The lump in his throat finally gave in a joyful, cracking sob as a label attached itself to that fondness and warmth he felt as he watched Oberon improve, like tumblers in an old lock falling into place.

It was the most _right_ thing in everything surrounding his return to the Empire. It would be a long road, with plenty of hurdles like this one (he suspected the upended table and wasted food would make itself one soon), but he wanted this with a desperation that surprised him, for both himself and for Oberon.

His family. _His son._

"Of course. I’d want nothing more.”

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the last of the ones posted solely to Tumblr, upload speeds will drop from here now that the catch-up is complete!
> 
> Adina and her daughters are DiscordCryptid's creation!


End file.
